Additions include new camera features and an "easy mode."

Some “premium features” that Samsung Galaxy SIII owners are set to receive will boost camera functionality and include an “easy mode” for first-time smartphone users, according to a post on the company’s official blog Monday. The new features will arrive alongside the phone’s Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update.

Samsung teased the addition of a few other features on Friday, including “multi-window functionality” that will allow users to split the screen and use two apps at once, as well as refinements like contextual menus that adjust based on users’ most frequent actions, the ability to auto-launch a music app when headphones are plugged in, and new customizations for the notifications pane.

The company has announced that the camera will now have a low-light shot function, which is something that smartphone manufacturers have been increasingly focused on. The camera will also get a “best face” setting that will take a burst of five captures, because, according to Samsung, “Somebody always, ALWAYS blinks.” As for the new “easy mode,” it’s less insulting than it sounds: when it’s turned on, the feature will automatically place the five most frequently used widgets on the home screen, for the types who neglect to optimize their setup manually.

An asterisk on the blog post notes that “Availability and timing of the Premium Suite upgrade will vary depending on the country and mobile carrier.” The update has reportedly been pushed out to some international 3G models so far, but no concrete release dates for the update stateside have been announced yet.

Promoted Comments

Honest question. How does one improve the low-light picture performance of a camera through software alone?

By getting rid of colour accuracy, for example. If you mix informations from R/G/B channels for examle, signal over noise ratio as regards lumlinance improves, you "just" loose the colour. That's part of the compromise in Samsung's "low light" feature it seems (accordinge to the illustration)

3 posts | registered Jan 28, 2011

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

Honest question. How does one improve the low-light picture performance of a camera through software alone?

By getting rid of colour accuracy, for example. If you mix informations from R/G/B channels for examle, signal over noise ratio as regards lumlinance improves, you "just" loose the colour. That's part of the compromise in Samsung's "low light" feature it seems (accordinge to the illustration)

By getting rid of colour accuracy, for example. If you mix informations from R/G/B channels for examle, signal over noise ratio as regards lumlinance improves, you "just" loose the colour. That's part of the compromise in Samsung's "low light" feature it seems (accordinge to the illustration)

I think the illustration is just a side effect of the phone being way brighter than the background. Some of that is probably just underexposing the DSLR that they took that with. It doesn't seem like that would make much sense though, since chroma noise is usually way higher than luminance noise in digital sensors. Given their infinite budgets they may have made a breakthrough in luminance noise reduction that would do something similar to that effect, but they wouldn't end up losing saturation from that.

This is a bit confusing, my UK i9300 S3 already has the "easy mode" (and is running 4.1.1 stock ROM).

Also, I thought players themselves were supposed to handle restarting when you plugged the headphones in? Maybe Samsung emitted a mangled press release, though I know that bother Neutron Player (sounds great, horrid interface) and Poweramp (sounds OK, lovely interface) can both do that auto-resume thing when you plug ze headphones in.

Maybe this is a poorly constructed press release that rolls up some of the changes in the initial Jellybean that has already rolled out to the S3, with the stuff that is coming soon- as all of it will seem to be new to some US users- who seem to be far more beholden to carriers (I seldom hear "Verizon" without a fex expletives either side).

Also, I thought players themselves were supposed to handle restarting when you plugged the headphones in? Maybe Samsung emitted a mangled press release, though I know that bother Neutron Player (sounds great, horrid interface) and Poweramp (sounds OK, lovely interface) can both do that auto-resume thing when you plug ze headphones in.

If it like the Note II, then it goes to an Audio home screen panel that is normally hidden.

This is a bit confusing, my UK i9300 S3 already has the "easy mode" (and is running 4.1.1 stock ROM).

Yes, Easy Mode was introduced with Samsung's Jelly Bean update. (I have it on my stock T-Mobile SGS3, but don't use Easy Mode.) The menu looks a little different (drop down vs radio selcet), but same results.

Not nearly as big an upgrade as going to Jelly Bean is, but overall a decent list of features. Still, I want the upgrade to 4.2. :-) Probably another six to twelve months, though. :-(

...refinements like contextual menus that adjust based on users’ most frequent actions...

Not sure I like this idea. I try to remember where menu options are, how to get to them, etc; changing menus - even based on usage - will likely confuse and frustrate me.

This has been a staple of the Windows Start Menu for a long time now though. More than likely it's not moving things for you. Instead it just provides a screen for it. At least that's what I'd hope from a feature like this.

Meanwhile Verizon still hasn't allowed a 4.1 update for the SIII. But they had time to roll out an update that disabled the bootloader unlocker someone came out with--which let's not forget was only necessary because Verzion is the ONLY carrier to have their version of the SIII locked down like that.

Yeah I wrote into Verizon about it and got a personalized response. Much better then the typical form letter I normally get (though I'm not 95% certain it wasn't a form letter - it could have been specifically tailored to this particular issue). However, they are claiming the same song and dance of having no information.

I'm sure my question(s) will seem very basic to most of you..bear with me as I'm fairlybnew to all of this. I also got the message on my SG3 AT&T phone that Jellybean was now available through Kies. I have tried to backup info on my phone through Kies Air but apparently thay process is over my head..lol..I have also plugged my phone up to my home PC but the only thing I know for sure that downloaded were just pictures that I have taken with this phone that I just upgraded a few weeks ago.It says you can remove your SIM and SD card before downloading JB...Is that correct? ...and my main question is - If I remove those 2 cards does that mean I wont lose ANY info on my phone? (ie: text messages, photos etc.)

The main reason I'm a little "crazy" about making sure nothing gets deleted is that my Father died suddenly a month ago..and as you can imagine...I treasure all of our text message convo's and attachments/pictures.